“When you think back to that generation, there were so many characters,” says Arsenal legend Jayne Ludlow of her FA Women’s Premier League days from the late 1990’s through to the 2011 birth of the Women’s Super League.
 
As she reels off names such as Doncaster Belles’ Karen Walker, Everton’s Jill Scott and Croydon/Charlton Athletic’s Pauline Cope along with her team mates the Hunt twins – Gemma and Carly – it seems fair to say that the league boasted more than its share of larger than life personalities.
 
And as the only woman to be voted the National Division ‘Players’ Player of the Year’ three times, the “kid from the Valleys” Ludlow certainly merits her place alongside those names.
 
Famously described by Arsenal manager Vic Akers as “the best box-to-box midfielder in the country,” ‘Luds’ had an eye for goal, an engine that rarely dropped below top gear and a laser-focused winning mentality.
 
Gazelle-like as she romped up and down the pitch, letting tackles and shots fly in with equal measure, Ludlow in full flow was a force to be reckoned with – for team mates and opponents alike.
 
“I think I was very annoying to be fair,” she laughs as she reflects on her stellar career. “I was the person who came out of the changing room wanting to win and about to do anything to make sure we win. 
 
“From an opposition perspective, I don’t really know, but when a game finished I generally had nice hugs and good conversations with people – and nothing from on the pitch was taken off it.
 
“And that’s the bit I loved. We’re all a bit of an animal when we’re competing, but when you come away your personality can be quite different and I enjoyed that.”
 
A future captain and manager of Wales, Ludlow first made waves in her native land with Tongwynlias Ladies, who then became Barry Town and – in 1996 – the first Welsh side to gain promotion to the Women’s Premier League.
 
Just 17 when she debuted in the Southern Division with Barry, Ludlow had to find a new club after moving to London to study physiotherapy at King’s College.
 
She took her top flight bow with Southampton Saints. Managed by Vanessa Raynbird, Saints were hardly on her doorstep; but commuting from London Bridge to the centre of Southampton for training soon became a way of life.
 
“I remember ‘Ness’ would pick me up and drop me back and it was an interesting first year in university, different to most,” she says. “And my thing was running, so I’d get off that train and they’d have us running around Southampton – I loved trying to win that race!”
 
Looking back to those days, Ludlow acknowledges how vital the Premier League was for players from Wales like herself, both when Barry were involved and after the club’s relegation and disbanding in 2002.
 
She says: “It was hugely important, because a lot of our national team players were playing in the league and travelling over the border once Barry weren’t involved to play for Bristol Rovers and other teams so they could compete at a high level.”
 
For her part, playing for Saints gave Ludlow the platform to compete against the likes of Arsenal and it was through scoring against the Gunners that she was spotted by Vic Akers.
 
Switching to north London in the summer of 2000, Ludlow embarked on an Arsenal career that would last 13 years, deliver 26 major trophies – including seven consecutive League titles and the UEFA Cup – and see her contribute 211 goals in 356 appearances.

Her first taste of success came in her incredible debut season. She scored a remarkable 28 goals from midfield, won the first of a record three National Division ‘Players Player of the Year’ gongs and Arsenal claimed their second treble - their first since 1992-93.

Theirs was a stellar squad, featuring fellow new girls Emma Byrne and Yvonne Tracy alongside the likes of Angela Banks, Kelley Few, Ciara Grant, Pauline MacDonald, Kirsty Pealling, Marieanne Spacey, Casey Stoney, Faye White and Sian Williams.
 
Ludlow says they were a daunting group to join, but she immediately bought into their winning mentality. “When I first stepped in it was, ‘What’s my place here?’ – I was a bit in awe of them,” she recalls.

 
“But there was something special about the place that was built before I came, where we really enjoyed what we did but were always going to work harder than anybody else. We would be more competitive in training with each other than we were on a Sunday. 
 
“I mean, we were training in that indoor barn at Highbury, which had concrete walls and we were 100 per cent going into tackles and pushing people into the walls because we wanted to win five-a-side games. 
 
“So when I reflect on what brought the success, it was a group of highly competitive individuals who figured out the whole relationship part and we got on really well.”

There were a number of challenges in those early years, with facilities not always coming up to scratch and rivals who never baulked at a challenge.

“There was so much variability (in changing rooms, pitches etc),” she says. “It was a case of ‘we don’t really know what we’re turning up to,’ There was lots of adversity, but it made it more fun. 
 
“We were an adaptable team; I think everybody needed to be then because you just didn’t know what you’d get each weekend.
 
“The Doncaster Belles rivalry I loved. I hated their pitch and their changing rooms. And oh my God, Karen Walker, she used to give me a headache because I had to mark her.
 
“I remember back in those days everyone was talking about the Hunt twins from Croydon. I used to love trying to kick lumps out of them and vice versa.
 
“Pauline Cope was a great player and a laugh a minute. For me it was, I’m a Valleys kid and I’ve got this mouthy Londoner in goal looking at me like I’m a piece of something on her shoe.
 
“Everton came to the fore as well and as Jill [Scott] got stronger as a player it was always ‘oh, you’re marking Jill, make she doesn’t run you here, there and everywhere,’ so I enjoyed that competition.
 
“There was always some team close to us but I guess in our successful years, not quite able to be better than us. It flipped between the teams that were getting a bit of investment or were suddenly building up player pathways and had good kids coming through.”
 
Another element of competition came into play at the beginning of the Noughties when, with the prospect of a professional League on the horizon, Fulham turned full-time.
 
“It was a strange one because I didn’t actually think much of it,” she says. “We were in a good place as a club, it wasn’t a case of we were asking for more, it was just a case of ‘okay this is happening’ and we were focused on ourselves and how we were evolving.
 
“I have no idea whether there were conversations internally about going professional or not, but in any case we had a different way because a lot of our girls worked for the club. We were training pretty much every day, not necessarily in an organised team environment, but Arsenal looked after us very well.”
 
Fulham fell away after the idea of a professional League ended; but Arsenal went from strength to strength as Kelly Smith and Rachel Yankey rejoined the club, Mary Phillip signed from Fulham and youth products Anita Asante, Lianne Sanderson and Alex Scott came of age.
 
Then in 2006, former Fulham professional and Charlton midfielder Katie Chapman and Birmingham City’s Karen Carney were added into the mix.
 
Ludlow laughs when she recalls the bruising on-pitch relationship she had enjoyed with the equally tough-tackling Chapman and how that enmity was turned on its head.

 
“We went from being the biggest of enemies,” she says. “When she joined I remember the vibe in the team, ‘Oh my God Luds, what are you going to do?’
 
“I don’t think I hugged her on the first day, but I couldn’t wait, I was like ‘Come on hun, we’re going to do this together and imagine the fun we’re going to have!’”
 
If the arrival of Chapman and Carney added two vital pieces to Akers’ team jigsaw, the picture was completed when he brought Emma Hayes in as his number two.
 
Ludlow had always viewed former assistant coach Fred Donnelly as an influential mentor, and she was to find further inspiration in Hayes – who was part of the team’s friendship group but fitted seamlessly into the leadership side.

 
“Emma has a great skillset in relationships and how to work with people,” says Ludlow, “and from really early on she was very good at identifying individual challenges for people.

“Similar to Fred there would constantly be a challenge, but she took it to an extreme level.
 
“She brought things in like full length pitch one-v-ones until your legs were hanging off. She would constantly put me with Kelly Smith and I couldn’t get the ball off Kelly, so Emma was very skilled in how to give a player what she perceived to be their motivating factors.”
 
All that hard work paid off and in that 2006-07 season, an Arsenal side captained by Ludlow made history by winning all three domestic honours and becoming England’s first women’s European champions when lifting the hallowed UEFA Cup (later re-titled Champions League).  
 
Ludlow remained with Arsenal for another six seasons after the quadruple feat, opting to move into management in 2013 when her body could no longer give her a full 90 minutes of play in what was becoming an increasingly competitive FAWSL. 
 
“I made quite a quick decision of moving from the player realm to the coaching realm and it was probably the best thing I ever did,” she says looking back at a managerial career that saw her coach Reading in the WSL and then her beloved Wales.
 
In 2024, after almost three years as Manchester City WFC Technical Director, Ludlow began working in coach education as the Head of Sport at the University of South Wales, all the while continuing as a technical leadership expert with FIFA, a role she first took up in 2020.
 
Time, women’s football and Ludlow have all moved on, but this most impressive of midfielders will always be one of the biggest characters to have graced the FAWPL.
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: With thanks to Catherine Etoe for the interview/written feature and images from Catherine Etoe, Gavin Ellis/TGSPHOTO and Simon Mooney.